Tech giants' business ecosystems transcend traditional economic sectors

Technology is always evolving, and keeping up with the pace of change is an ongoing challenge for business leaders. Companies can be vulnerable to competition from entirely different sectors—consider how Apple made a MP3 player called the iPod and killed the compact disc forever. It was the first time the computer hardware company had even ventured into the music business. Individual sectors are rapidly dissolving into much larger business ecosystems, according to Kamal Munir (PhD’00) the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the Judge School of Business at the University of Cambridge.

Speaking to Prof. Karl Moore in Les Affaires, Munir cautioned that tech giants like Amazon and Google are bigger than any individual sector of the economy, and that the biggest competition small businesses face might not even be selling the same product yet.